Tag Archives: AFM

Listen Up! – Musicians Call for Fairness

National campaign seeks to bring motion picture and TV film music work back home

by Linda A. Rapka

Musicians in Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York kicked off the nationwide Listen Up! campaign April 10 seeking fairness for musicians working in the motion picture and TV film industry.

AFM President Ray Hair speaks out against film-music offshoring at the Listen Up! campaign launch in Los Angeles.

Led by rank-and-file members of the American Federation of Musicians, the campaign calls upon the entertainment industry to stop the offshoring of film and television music scoring and to ensure musicians’ work is valued by all companies at the same professional standard as other cast and crew. Continue reading →

Musicians Kick Off Listen Up! Campaign Today

AFM President Ray Hair speaks out against film-music offshoring at the Listen Up! campaign launch in Los Angeles.

WESTWOOD (April 11, 2014) — Yesterday Los Angeles-area musicians held a press conference and rally across from the Regency Theatre in Westwood as part of a nationwide kickoff for Listen Up! – a campaign for fairness for musicians working in the motion picture and TV film industry.

The campaign calls out the motion picture-TV film industry for treating U.S. musicians unfairly by offshoring movie soundtrack recordings. Many offshored soundtrack recordings are made for films funded in part by U.S. taxpayers. At the Listen Up! kickoff event, musicians who are members of the American Federation of Musicians and its affiliated Los Angeles Local 47 were joined by representatives from the AFL-CIO, and other labor, faith, and community leaders to call on the film industry to stop offshoring film scoring work. Continue reading →

A New AFM Local is Born!

Local 50 serves performers of regional Mexican music

by Ethan S. Harris

On Jan. 8, the newest Local in the AFM family was born in our own Local 47 Auditorium.

The acting members of the Executive Board of Regional Mexican AFM Local 50 took their oaths of office in front of approximately 20 new members. Also in attendance at the ceremony were Local 47 Vice President John Acosta, Organizer Ethan Harris, and AFM Assistant to the President for the Western United States, Ken Shirk.

AFM Assistant to the President for the Western United States Ken Shirk with the acting Executive Board members of the new non-regional AFM Local 50: Euler Torres (President), Ruben Fernandez (Vice President), John Anthony Diaz (Secretary/Treasurer), and Jesus Tucker (Executive Member-at-Large).

Continue reading →

‘Ellen’ Show Signs Deal With Musicians Union

HOLLYWOOD, CA (Oct. 24, 2012) — After years of urging by Professional Musicians, Local 47 — the labor union representing musicians in Los Angeles — producers of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” this week agreed to compensate musical guest performers under American Federation of Musicians (AFM) contracts.

Musicians performing on “Ellen” previously received wages and benefits under contracts with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) and were deemed as “specialty acts” rather than musicians, a distinction disputed by Local 47. SAG-AFTRA contracts do not include the provisions for residuals and re-use payments to musicians that are covered under AFM contracts. Per labor standards, if two or more unions have overlapping jurisdiction, workers must be compensated at the higher prevailing rate. Continue reading →